Eugenia Lim is an Australian artist who works across video, performance and installation. Interested in how nationalism and stereotypes are formed, Lim invents personas to explore the tensions of an individual within society – the alienation and belonging in a globalised world.

Conflations between authenticity, mimicry, natural, man-made, historical and anachronistic are important to the work. To this end, Lim finds inspiration in sites and objects that are both ‘contemporary’ and ‘out of time’, embodied and virtual. Model homes, suburban sprawl, CCTV, online chat rooms, fake food, historical parks and the Australian landscape have all featured in the work. Counterpoint to these sites, Lim has performed the identities of Japanese hikikomori; a Bowie-eyed rock star; the cannibal Issei Sagawa; a suburban beautician; Miranda from Picnic at Hanging Rock and currently, a gold Mao-suited ‘Ambassador’. This dialogue between place and performance reflects the push-pull between Australian and Asian, the mono and the multi-cultural.

Lim’s work has been exhibited internationally at venues including the Tate Modern, GOMA, ACMI, HUN Gallery NY, and FACT Liverpool. She has received a number of Australia Council for the Arts grants and residencies, including a residency at the Experimental Television Centre NY and exchange at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Collaboration, artistic community and the intersection between art and society informs her practice: in addition to her solo work, she co-directed the inaugural Channels: the Australian Video Art Festival, is a board member at Next Wave, the editor of Assemble Papers and co-founded Tape Projects.

WOMAN’S WORK

OASIS

NARCISSUS

Stay Home Sakoku

Yellow Peril

PROJECTS

NEWS

Yellow Peril exhibition

posted on: 19 Mar 2015

Looking forward to my upcoming show at Bus Projects here in Melbourne. On show will be a new body of work, ‘Yellow Peril’ based on a gold-suited performance for camera and series of actions filmed at Sovereign Hill, Ballarat. Join me for the opening on Wed 8 April, 6pm.

The Ethics of Design

posted on: 12 Mar 2015

I’ll be moderating (with my colleague at Assemble Papers, Rachel Elliot-Jones) a panel on the ethics of design in the age of terror and climate crisis, featuring speakers Philippa Abbott (designer and founder of A&D Projects), Ewan McEoin (Senior Curator of Contemporary Design and Architecture, NGV; & Founder of The Field Institute) and Robert Sparrow (philosopher and ARC Future Fellow). At its best, design gives us access to a better world: good design promotes efficiency, sustainability and perhaps even delight for those who experience it through living or usage. But designers are also decision-makers who must choose who they work for and what they are commissioned to design – an ethical framework for their design. Marc Newson is lauded as one of Australia’s most acclaimed and iconic designers. In late 2014, Newson designed the “486 by Marc Newson“, a premium ‘masterpiece’ for Beretta, one of the oldest firearm makers in the world. What happens when design is used to kill? Should we celebrate designers with ethical blindspots? Should designers be held accountable for the real world applications of their products?